(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you I know there's a lot of people going, probably going, you wear glasses? Yes, I wear glasses. ha ha ha I normally wear contacts and tonight I'm wearing my glasses and I'll probably be wearing them a lot more frequently because I'm getting older and it's harder to read so instead of having cheaters little reading glasses I will probably just start wearing these so don't be surprised when you see me in glasses, it's okay I have a prescription it's normal alright prayer requests we have multiple multiple multiple ladies there with child great blessing there, please pray for all the women that their children will be delivered safely and healthy and without any major problems there of course continue to pray for all the rest of the people on the list here that are not doing well that have disease do we have any updates for people who are on the list as it stands right now, yes sir so so yep whatever they removed off because he said negative oh good, well that's good news he was almost worried there wasn't any hope left well you said the doctors were even not giving like high hopes for that there's no but see now there is because that's not only I mean psychologically in your mind, you know like mentally, spiritually, you know kind of hearing good news like that does a lot then to probably help to overall help him with his health, right to have that good mindset and have some relief is very big, so that's good news I'm glad to hear it, so if you guys didn't hear it, Charles Stover who we were praying for that had that surgery they sent off, got biopsies of what they removed and the cancer did not spread according to what they took out, obviously great I'm glad to hear that, that's good praise the lord for that, that's good any other updates alright, very good please continue to pray for everyone who is on our list on the next page we've got the what do we have December challenge, singing challenge the challenge for this month is to stop listening to world music, sing four hymns every day we have a bunch of people who are participating I had a show of hands on Sunday, there's a lot of people participating, so please continue, we've got just a little less than a week left in the month of December and then January begins our Bible reading challenge so we have I think they're up by the bookshelf there's some printouts of what each so starting with Matthew 1 to Matthew 9 right, and there's a little box so you can check the box once you've completed that, and it's basically just nine chapters if you just go consecutively from Matthew to Revelation it's a good way of just keeping track, making sure and then if you ever fall short, if you read seven chapters in a day instead of nine chapters, or eight chapters, or six chapters, or five chapters, whatever and that happens, you can still look at that list and be like oh, okay, I'll make it up tomorrow and let me just make sure I read up through whatever the chapter is, it's very helpful to have that, just to keep an idea of where you're at, and also before we get started on that, I'll probably make this announcement again on Sunday don't drop out if you miss some, either a day or two or some chapters early, or whatever and you feel like you get pretty far behind because the beginning is harder than the end there's longer chapters in general, like in the Gospels you know, the whole Gospel of Mark is only 16 chapters but there's, you know, it's a lot of material so, there's a lot of longer chapters, when we're doing nine chapters a day, the beginning half of the month is going to be harder than the latter half of the month when you start getting into some of the smaller epistles that are, that don't really have very long chapters so, the other way to do it is to not do nine chapters a day, you can count how many pages you'll figure out how many pages there are in your Bible for the New Testament, and divide that by the 31 days of January and just make sure you read that many pages and that'll give you a consistent amount of reading to do every day, so anyways, it's all up to you, however you choose to do it but, you got 31 days and it has to start January 1 your Bible reading, to get the prize, so we start the New Testament wherever you want to start, I don't care where you start you can start Revelation for all I care just get all the chapters read in the New Testament, between January 1 January 31, that is our challenge for January New Church Plant, Greenville please continue to pray for this, we're looking for a place, we're going to probably be hiring someone to help us do that very shortly, we've got the Bible Memory passage, Hebrews 10, it's the latter half we're halfway through this, so continue working on that in order to earn your prize before the deadline for that, upcoming birthdays and anniversaries are listed there I don't know, I have a whole other bulletin somewhere make note of that and then on the back, the upcoming events so we already had a Christmas cookie exchange soloing marathon is coming up this Saturday, we already talked about that, December 31 so this Sunday coming up is our Watch Night service we're going to have a normal Sunday morning service and evening, it's another normal service except there's going to be multiple people preaching it's not me, so it'll be multiple men that are going to be preaching for the church that night and then once that concludes, we will have dinner here after church if you'd like to join us, we'll have a free meal and then you can continue to stick around as long as you want and fellowship and play some games and just kind of enjoy each other as we bring in the new year here that Sunday night, should be a lot of fun hope to see you here that evening and then January 19th we've got the homeschool field trip and then also that same day is the pizza and movie night, so that's going to be a lot of fun and I know Mrs. Johnson already created the sign up sheet for the movie night she also created a sign up sheet Mrs. Johnson wants to do a ladies activity with the ladies who are interested in sewing, so you can talk to her about the details, I think they need to be figured out still because we need to make sure that you know however many ladies know how to sew versus those that don't know how to sew if you want to learn how to sew, you can come to that activity and the ladies who have more experience can teach the ones that don't and some of them have extra sewing machines, so we're going to try to make it where everyone will get an opportunity especially if you don't know how to sew and you're looking for more guidance on that, just talk to her about all the details on that because I think we need to figure out who all is interested in going and then the details can be hammered out specifically but I believe there's a sign up sheet over here for that as well and then May 13th of course is our church camp, so sign up for that if you haven't because like I said beginning in January I'm going to be trying to nail down all of the details on that and assigning campsites and those things to everyone who has signed up and yes sir How do I not have that? Did we get, we got your family's birthday list didn't we? I will thank you Is there anyone else that I've missed? Again after the 24th I may have you on this list still because there's only so much room on the bulletin Is there anyone else I missed for January, birthdays, anniversaries? Alright, very good. Alright so that is about it for our announcements and I will turn the service over to brother Peter Alright church, if you can open up your hymnals song number 29 And song number 29 At the Cross Song 29 At the Cross Singing 7th and 1st And the burden of my heart rolled away It was fair by faith I received my sight And now I am happy all the day What's it for crimes that I have done? He groaned upon the tree Amazing kitty He's a note in love beyond decree At the Cross At the Cross Where I first saw the light And the burden of my heart rolled away It was fair by faith I received my sight And now I am happy all the day Well, my heart is tied And shut his glory's veil When Christ the mighty Maker died For man the creature sinned At the Cross At the Cross Where I first saw the light And the burden of my heart rolled away It was fair by faith I received my sight And now I am happy all the day The toss of grief and everything The judge of love I owe Dear Lord I give myself away Tis all that I can do Where I first saw the light And the burden of my heart rolled away It was fair by faith I received my sight And now I am happy all the day Amen. Church, we're going to sing this time. I'd like to ask the ushers if they can settle for our Wednesday night offering which goes to some of the patients. In church, while the offering plates are being passed around you can open up your Bibles to the book of Psalm chapter eighty-five. That's the book of Psalm chapter eighty-five. As we do customary here at St. Olaf Baptist Church we want you to read the entire chapter. That's part of it. Amen, church. Once again, that's the book of Psalms Psalm eighty-five. Psalm eighty-five, the Bible reads Lord, thou hast been favorable unto thy land thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people thou hast covered all their sins sila thou hast taken away all thy wrath thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger turn us O God of our salvation and cause thine anger toward us to cease will thou be angry with us forever will thou draw out thine anger to all generations will thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee show us thy mercy O Lord and grant us thy salvation I will hear what God the Lord will speak for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints but let them not turn again to folly surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him that glory may dwell in our land mercy and truth are met together righteousness and peace have kissed each other truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven shall give that which is good and our land shall yield her increase righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps let's pray Father God we thank you and praise you for the book of Psalms we thank you for all that you do thank you for all the souls that have been saved and thank you for allowing us to be able to save many souls this year God we plan to do more for next year God and thank you for all that you have given us in this church feel past the burdens with your spirit allow for him to preach your boldness let our ears be attended to your word allow for us to learn something new tonight we praise you and thank you for all that you do we say this in Jesus name Amen Alright Psalm 85 is not a very long Psalm we got 13 verses here and a lot of this is similar we see references to sin the iniquity of the people we see forgiveness from God this is more of a positive Psalm and it's just a high level overview of the Psalm before we dig into the verses here and the asking of God to you know to bless and to not be angry with them and then we see some some of the blessings following through of the Lord and righteousness here so let's dig in here to verse number one the Bible says Lord thou has been favorable unto thy land thou has brought back the captivity of Jacob so the first verse is setting us up with where we're at right this is after children of Israel are being brought back out of captivity so it doesn't necessarily say which captivity I don't think that that's necessarily important it's just referencing a captivity a time when the children of Israel have gone astray and then they're coming back to the Lord and I mean this may be prophetic from that time but I would say it doesn't really matter because you know I want to just dig more into just how God works is a very good summary of how God works in general and this is from the vantage point from the standpoint of having now finished going through chastening of the Lord as a people this is that you know Israel as a whole is coming out of being captive they've turned from the Lord now they're being brought back out of captivity and verse two says thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people thou has covered all their sin so they've received the forgiveness of God God brought them back they have now passed that point of whatever transgression was God has forgiven that iniquity he's covered all of their sin verse three thou hast taken away all thy wrath thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger verse four turn us O God of our salvation and cause thine anger toward us to cease so we see here three times the first three verses expressing look we've been forgiven our sins are covered you know you've taken away your wrath the fierceness of your anger you've kind of crossed that point to where they're getting back in good standing with the Lord and you know as we go through this this is referring to you know the nation the land the people of God as a collective and I'm going to address it that way but obviously you can still apply most of this individually as well so when you go through your own chastening and your own times where where God might have to punish you for your sins and your you know disobedience and stiff nakedness that that you know when when you return to the Lord and you humble yourself and you seek God then and he forgives you then covers your sin and then takes away his wrath from you you're in a you know you're going to be in this state where you're one very thankful because you've received that forgiveness from from the Lord which is which is great and you're you're starting to get back in good in good graces but at the same time this is also a very good place to you know you're not far removed from that captivity from the punishment and you're just you're you're probably gonna be sitting very lightly going like like thank you like like thank you for not you know for for your wrath you know toning that down and taking away your wrath but but please don't don't be angry with me again you know like turn us the Bible says here turn us oh God of our salvation like like you know get us on the right path is what this is saying and I just want to express this real quick in four here when it says turn us oh God of our salvation cause an anger toward us to cease this this does not negate any type of free will you can look at this statement and don't and what I wouldn't do is when it says turn us oh God that's not saying like like a lot of people and and this is very understandable I think you would like to just be able to let God just run your life for you right like where you could just be like God like if you just had a switch you could turn right now and just be like God just take over and run my life for me I would like to be able to do that cause then you'd just be guaranteed like like alright well then God's just gonna do everything that is good for me what what's right what I should be doing but that's not how God operates see like we don't believe in in the God of John Kelvin that that just everything happens to to what he says it's gonna be and it's all predetermined it's all predestinated and God's just like a puppet master controlling the strings of everybody and everything that they do that is completely false we don't subscribe to that not even a little bit so when the Bible says turn us oh God of our salvation obviously we want God to direct us we want God to be with us we want God to show us the right way which is ultimately how this psalm ends up so look at verse number 13 this is where we get this conclusion this conclusion of the thought to you know hey look we've done wrong we we've sinned we've gone into captivity we've been punished for that now God you know turn us back to you back to serving you get our minds straight help us to walk the right path show us the way forward from here turn us we don't want to go back to where we were before turn us the right way and this has to do with getting direction getting guidance from the Lord verse number 13 there in psalm 85 the Bible says righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps this is what they were looking for of course it concludes with that but this is the whole point of saying turn us right show us the right way go back in our life and give us the guidance that we need and as I was preparing for this sermon there's a couple of passages that came up that just made me think about other portions of scripture if you want to keep your place here um and turn if you go to Amos chapter number 8 this desire this request for God to hey turn us turn us back right again get us get us in the right way uh verse number five I'm gonna read for you in psalm 85 I meant to read this before we turn to Amos 8 he says wilt thou be angry with us forever wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations wilt thou not revive us again that thy people may rejoice in thee and it's this in thee and it's this this still this feeling of making you know like God please don't just cast us off forever don't be angry with us forever you know we've they already know that they've been forgiven God's brought them back but the desire here is to not want to have the anger of Lord in their lives anymore they want they want to get right and this is the right heart that is has to be there in order for them to even be brought back and to receive that forgiveness anyways it's that repentant heart and looking for the right way but what and this is this is the concern I think that that they're worried about is what the bible says in Amos chapter 8 when the people have sinned greatly and they're being judged look at verse number 10 of Amos chapter 8 the bible says and I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation and before I even continue here this is just such a basic principle overall going all the way back to the law all the way back to the first five books of Moses going back to where God just promises like hey here's my law you keep my law and I will bless you and I'm going to multiply your you know your seed I'm going to multiply the crops I'm going to you know protect you I'll be your defender you know one of you shall chase ten of you shall chase a thousand like you're going to be blessed and I'll be there for you and I'll be your God and you'll be my people but if you disobey me then things are going to go bad then I'm going to allow you to be brought into captivity you know you're not going to be reaping anything good out of the land you're going to go into all kinds of problems so we see this play out over and over and over and over and over and over and over again throughout scripture and you see it play out I'm sure just in life in general whether it be your life or people that you know people just have no regard for the Lord and especially his people you know Christians that just get out of the will of God and just have no regard for serving God no regard for doing anything for the Lord they end up not being blessed just in general and seem to have a lot of problems that that wouldn't otherwise be there look at let's keep reading your verse number 10 I will turn your feast in the morning and all your songs into lamentation and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins and baldness upon every head and I will make it as the morning of an only sun and the end thereof as a bitter day behold the days come saith the Lord God that I will send a famine in the land not a famine of bread nor thirst for water but of hearing the words of the Lord and they shall wander from sea to sea and from the north even to the east they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord and shall not find it and this is that's a scary place to be he's not always saying I'm going to turn your feast in the morning your songs and lamentation you're going to be going through these curses but then you're going to want to know what the Lord has to say you're going to want to get that direction from the Lord you want to be God to be with you God to answer you God to hear your prayers and God to guide you and you're not going to be able to find it and you're going to be trying to find the word of the Lord and you're going to be running to and fro and trying to find who's got a message from the Lord who's got a word from the Lord and you're not going to find anything there's a famine in the land of God communicating of God guiding of God directing the people and this is a place where you don't want to be in and this is the concern and this is the request hey turn us oh God you know like be there for us guide us show us the right way because obviously as we saw in Amos turn back if you go to Psalm 85 as you can see in Amos you can get to that point the people can get to that point the nation can get to that point to where you know they've sinned and sinned and sinned against the Lord and now he's punishing them and now they're not even receiving of the Lord they're not receiving the right guidance and the right instruction that they would need we saw that in King Saul's life right remember he sinned and sinned and sinned and sinned he didn't humble himself and thought he could do everything and then when he wants to seek the Lord and he wants counsel from God he goes and he's trying to ask counsel and he's like God doesn't answer and then he takes it so far as to go see a witch and try to bring up Samuel to give him word from the Lord right which is extremely wicked and he ends up dying of course they get killed in battle and they desecrate his body him and his sons die in battle and as a result of his disobedience but we see that God will get to that point to where you know if you if you push things too far that he just won't be there for you he won't be there to answer your requests to guide you to give you the instruction that you need now again I'll bring this up probably as much as I feel I need to I think everyone here already understands this but we already believe that you know there's no way a believer could ever lose their salvation even King Saul didn't lose his salvation when he was able to speak with Samuel the day before he died Samuel prophesied to him and said tomorrow you know that you'll be with me that you and your sons are going to be with me and there is no indication that Samuel wasn't saved as a prophet of the Lord we wholeheartedly believe that Samuel was a prophet that he was saved he was a man of God and if he was saying you're going to be with me then Samuel wasn't burning in hell so we can take that as proof that Samuel prophesied the truth unto him and that when he died he was with him not to mention that the Bible says that you know God gave him another heart and that Saul prophesied just like the prophets and all these other things we have plenty of evidence to show us that King Saul was saved and we know that salvation is eternal and that can never be taken away even when you do bad you know God's people you do bad things hey God's going to punish you he's going to chasten you he may get to the point to where he's not going to listen to you because you've been too disobedient and you need to be punished some more but his loving kindness his mercy is never fully taken away from you that you still have that salvation you're still a child of God and you still have a home in heaven so the the plea here in Psalm 85 is just you know basically to not be angry forever and and to to guide them now and and now that they're seeking him please show us the way and guide us the way that we ought to go verse number six says wilt thou not revive us again and revive of course means to be brought back to life so like they in the sense that we were serving you before we're walking the right way the path of righteousness we fell we transgressed now you've forgiven us now revive us again bring us back to be able to serve you again to be fruitful again and to be a people that could bring you honor and glory again that thy people may rejoice in thee and and basically be able to be used again right of the lord and this should be a concern if you've got your heart right with the lord it's a scary place to be in you know for us um especially once you know you know let's say you're someone who's you know what it's like to serve the lord you you've you know you go soul winning you pray you read your bible you've served god you've experienced a blessing of god in your life and then something happens and you end up you know backsliding and kind of getting out of the things of god and maybe maybe you commit some some bad sin some type of grievous sin and then you get to the point where you're like man what have i done and you want to turn back to god and you find that god is a merciful god and there is forgiveness with the lord and then you get back well you're going to want god to still be able to use you again right you're going to want to not just get out of the fight and i would just encourage you you're all here in church with us tonight if this ever happens to you and i pray that it won't ever happen but just being in church long enough you will see people come and go through church it happens it happens it happens to really good people it happens to people that you love it happens to people that you care about that have been on fire for the lord and that you would never think would ever drop out of church and just kind of go by the wayside but it happens and all i can do is while you're here just stress look do your best for that not to happen but if you find yourself in that position where you have back sinned you have committed sins you're ashamed you're whatever you know you're you know you're guilty of whatever it is before god and god's chasing you and god's you know quote unquote brought you into captivity in however however that needs to be handled for your case with the lord that you would turn to him but then seek to be used of him again and don't be so proud that you can't show back up to church and even if you never go back to the same church even if you don't come back to this church for example go back to church and start serving the lord again and don't get the defeated attitude look if you're still alive god has something more for you to do because if god was done with you then he'd be done as a child of god especially if he were done with you in this life you wouldn't be here you wouldn't be here so there's clearly more for you to do so i would just just remember that and as you're thanking god for his mercy and thanking god for for you know taking away his wrath and and turning himself from his fierce anger on you if you you know when you get to that point as as the bible's describing here that you would seek to be revived again in the sense of being renewed being able to to go back now start fresh start new and serve the lord again and i'll tell you this much from our church okay and i can't control how every person behaves obviously but i think i know the people here well enough you come back here and no one's gonna say anything or question you or hound you and you know what if you were thinking that way don't ever do that so someone you know has been out of church for a long time just welcome them hey it's great to see you god bless you it's god man i'm so happy you're here right and you don't need to bother asking about what all the deal oh well how did you could you possibly do that where have you been huh what have you been you know like no we don't do that okay you want people to be able to look if they're already coming you know willing to to come back like let's welcome them there's you know whatever happened now they're seeking the lord again great we're happy about that we're gonna rejoice and just let whatever that is be whatever's between them and lord that got them out of serving god whatever they were doing none of our business let's just be able to to keep moving forward and we ought to be able to to do that and allow other people to do that and i say that here so that way when if that ever happens to you don't think like oh what's everyone going to think and everyone's you know you know what people are going to think honestly the you know at least the righteous people are going to be thinking wow i'm so glad they're back and i can think of many people right now many people right now that no longer attend our church that could come to our church that i would be if they walk through those doors i would just be really happy that they're here and the only people that i would not be happy about are the ones that got kicked out because they're perverts okay those guys no but that's it right i mean anyone and you know what i don't think there's been anyone kicked out for any other reason we haven't kicked out that many people you know we're not not even that old of a church but people have left right some people have left because whatever because of me because of something that i teach other people have left for just probably their own personal reasons who knows i don't know what all the reasons are why people leave and you know what i don't go out of my way to ask people in general you know if if you're going to leave and let me and this is just a good opportunity just to kind of cover this right now anyways if people are going to leave here i'm not going to go and try to run after and chase after people that leave but that doesn't mean that i don't care okay i care tremendously but i may reach out because i do care but i'm not going to you know bend over backwards to try to get you know if there's a reason why you're leaving and you know if someone's going to leave our church i would hope that more time or whatever you know something got into that point where i don't know what's it going to matter what i say if it's a matter of what i'm teaching well i'm not going to change what i teach in order to get somebody to stay is one of the ways i look at that so i just you know if that's a reason for someone departing from our church i don't really see much of a point in that and if they feel like it's bad enough then that i can't be part of the church and i have to leave well then that's that's on you it doesn't mean i don't care it doesn't mean that i want you to leave or anything like that but i'm not going to go trying to run after and chase after people if that's the case you come to that conclusion and then god bless you that's your conclusion and go you know but serve the lord somewhere else and that's fine right so that's just my mindset and i think it's important to understand that um it's not like a pride issue or anything for me it's not too proud i just you know i i try to i try to not get into your all into anybody's lives too much here at all i don't want to pry i don't want to you know just get into personal matters a whole lot in general i really agree with people being independent and coming up to your own conclusions and i've expressed multiple times if you have an issue come and talk to me about it and i'm happy to talk about you know whatever your issue is bring it up to me i'll talk to you about it and if i'm wrong about something then let me know and and but just bring the bible bring facts to the to the discussion uh and i will listen to that and no way am i going to guarantee that i'll change my mind because i don't know i have to hear what hear whatever it is that people have to say before i would say that but in my heart i'm open to being corrected and changing my mind about things if um you know if i'm wrong if you can show me that i'm wrong and you know in any case i don't even know how i got that that far off what i was preaching here but what verse were we on for that revive us again that bring being brought back right going back to to following the lord that's where this all came from you get in that position where if you've been kicked out or anything like that um or you've just backslidden you know you wanna you wanna come back and and and see that you wanna come back and and and seek the lord and ask god for his help hey bring me back into good graces lord of good standing and show me the right way again and you know what we'd be happy to receive everybody back that uh has fallen out for whatever reason and um yeah let's keep reading here verse number seven show us thy mercy oh lord and grant us thy salvation i will hear what god the lord will speak for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints but let them not turn again to folly so we see the goodness of god here in the very beginning talking about the forgiveness god turning from his anger the reception again and seeking the lord and and and looking for that revival but then uh we see in verse eight this is also part of the process okay i'm gonna hear what the lord will speak like in part of your coming back from being chastened of the lord have your ears open to god right probably what got you in trouble at the first place was not wanting to hear from god and we see that happen with the children of israel especially you know they don't want to hear the word of the lord they want to serve their idols they want to do this they want to do that they want to get into this and they they want to do what they want to do they don't want to hear what god is telling them to do so here we see hey i'm going to hear i will hear what the lord god will speak for he will speak peace unto his people and to his saints god brings peace and look the sin whatever the sin is that got you into trouble and whatever that sin is that that that may have caused you to stray i guarantee you your sin isn't going to bring you peace it only brings trouble one it brings inherent trouble of sin just sin itself never yields good fruit it never does ever that's just inherent to sin if god didn't even get involved in any chastening just sinning of itself has its own built in ramifications of just curses of no good fruit coming from sin i mean obviously the bible says the wages of sin is death i mean that is the end but on top of that you have god who also as if you're a child of god especially will chasten and um not hold you guiltless in that regard here on this earth and will make sure that you have to face your punishment but we we ought to listen to god because he's going to speak peace to his people and to his saints he's going to help us to walk in the right way he's going to show us the right way and of course that will be good for us but then it says there but let them not turn again to folly right so you get to the point okay god i'm sorry i did wrong uh please guide me please show me your way i'm ready to hear i'm ready to listen when you get to that point don't go now back like a dog like a dog returns to his vomit right and go back to your foolishness and back to your folly hey you've already been through a lot you got back to this point don't go back again surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him and that's key look we we want god to guide us and be with us then have the right fear of the lord and normally that's why people get back right with god after he's disciplined after he's punished because they start to realize what was i thinking i don't want i don't want god's anger in my life i want god blessing me and i'm going to turn back to him and yeah his salvation is nigh them that fear him that glory may dwell in our land verse 10 mercy and truth are met together righteousness and peace have kissed each other and of course this is very poetic language it's a psalm it's a song but we see mercy and truth essentially going hand in hand right god's mercy and god's truth the truth and mercy go hand in hand you can't hide from your sin you can't lie to god about your sin you have to be truthful about it uh you know confess forsake and then you'll find god's mercy and similarly righteousness and peace have kissed you righteousness and peace go hand in hand because if you're walking in righteousness you'll know peace you'll have peace god will be with you truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven yea the lord shall give that which is good and our land shall yield or increase now we're seeing the result of walking in righteousness and truth is the blessing of the lord the earth yielding or increase and again you know I've been doing a lot of individual application of this but the psalm is about the nation this is talking about the whole of Israel turning back to the lord and we're seeing the playing out of the law and what god had said would happen when moses gave them the law and now we're seeing what does happen and then kind of being in the condition of returning to the lord and then of course verse 13 says righteousness shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his steps now turn of view to ezekiel chapter 37 excuse me this is one other passage that came to mind while I was meditating on this passage before before preaching tonight specifically there in verse number six talking about reviving us again that that people may rejoice in the ezekiel 37 the first half of the passage is that that famous passage about the about the dry bones them bones them bones right so we got the and we're going to read this if you don't know the story but basically you know ezekiel sees this valley it's full of dead bones and of course god raises those bones they all come together before his eyes and then the flesh and the sinews and muscles they all start to like men start being animated or completed right from the bones now are becoming back like people and then of course god brings the wind and they receive life and the question is here well let's just read the passage verse number one the bible says the hand of the lord was upon me and carried me out in the spirit of the lord and set me down in the midst of the valley which was full of bones and caused me to pass by them round about and behold there were very many in the open valley and lo they were very dry and he said unto me son of man can these bones live and i answered oh lord god thou knowest again he said unto me prophesy upon these bones and say unto them oh ye dry bones hear the word of the lord thus saith the lord god unto these bones behold i will cause breath to enter into you and ye shall live and i will lay sinews upon you and will bring up flesh upon you and cover you with skin and put breath in you and ye shall live and ye shall know that i am the lord so i prophesied as i was commanded and as i prophesied there was a noise and behold a shaking and the bones came together bone to his bone and when i beheld lo the sinews and the flesh came up upon them and the skin covered them above but there was no breath in them then he then said unto me prophesy unto the wind prophesy son of man and say to the wind thus saith the lord god come from the four winds oh breath and breathe upon these slain that they may live so i prophesied as he commanded me and the breath came into them and they lived and stood up upon their feet an exceeding great army then he said unto me son of man these bones are the whole house of israel behold they say our bones are dried and our hope is lost we are cut off for our parts therefore prophesy and say unto them thus saith the lord god behold oh my people i will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of israel and ye shall know that i am the lord when i have opened your graves oh my people and brought you up out of your graves and shall put my spirit in you and ye shall live and i shall place you in your own land then shall you know that i the lord have spoken it and performed it saith the lord now there is a lot in that passage and i'm not going to just go through and and give a verse by verse here on ezekiel 37 but uh i think right off the bat you could probably see why this popped into my mind as i'm studying psalm 85 because one he's referring to the nation of israel where it's talking about israel about his people in general again i think there's a lot of applications we can make it with ezekiel 37 i think it's very prophetic obviously there's a reference to um resurrection and we could see you know that israel just being resurrected that the bones are dry doesn't matter how long people have been dead but when jesus comes back there's going to be a resurrection and of course there's going to be ruling and reigning from jerusalem and that his saints and his people are going to be ruling and reigning so there is definitely that application here we could see that prophecy here but i don't think that that's the only application we could make with ezekiel 37 i think as we see here you know uh well what about these people they're dry bones they're dead they're good for nothing right they've been out for a long time they've been dead well can they live again can they be revived can they be revived again and the answer is yes god can use them again god can bring them back to life and here um you know the the the nation of israel okay you've been you've gone into captivity yeah you've been punished you could say now we're the laughing stock we went into captivity or whatever now what could we do as a nation you can still turn back to the lord and he could still use you and he could breathe life into you again and you can go forward and continue to serve the lord this is a psalm of hope of of knowing that god is a god of mercy knowing that god is a forgiving god he wants you to turn to him he wants you to have the desire to listen to him as we saw that also in psalm 85 i will hear the word of the lord i will listen right there's mercy and truth are bound together and god can use you again and as i mentioned if you if you're still alive and breathing breath god has a purpose for you and god can use you and god wants to use you again such a great this psalm and and you know this psalm i wasn't going to cover this necessarily tonight because there's multiple songs psalms like this and i think i covered it quite a while back in our in our first go uh somewhere between psalm 1 and 50 somewhere in the 40s i think the the title for this psalm it says to the chief musician a psalm for the sons of korra and there's there's multiple and i don't remember the exact number if it's six or seven or eight or something there's something where there are like psalm 84 also says a psalm for the sons of korra psalm 84 psalm 85 and there's a few more psalm 87 and psalm 88 and then in the 40s there's also some as well so i covered this once before but if you remember korra this is that korra of korra dathan and abiram and korra dathan and biram were the ones that withstood moses and they're the ones that were saying you know they wanted the priesthood right and korra was a levite there was other dathan and abiram where i don't know if they were of juda or some one of the other tribes but korra was was a levite it's like look you already have a job serving god and now you just want to have the priesthood and they wanted to just take it over like who is moses and who is aaron and who are these guys you know like like they're they're thinking there's something special over us and they were um they were wicked right and and this is the story where god opens up the earth and just they go straight to hell like that they just get consumed like them and their families you know dathan and biram they're standing in their tents and they're just kind of standing there with their families and stuff and god just opens up the earth and they just fall straight down into hell and korra dies also but the bible is clear and i don't have the reference here you could look it up later um that the the children of korra though did not uh go down to hell like it's the bible specifically mentions that his children did not die that way because dathan and biram their whole household did die and they did go straight to hell but korra's children did not go down to hell and now we see multiple references here and i think it makes sense to me and i don't treat these titles as the word of god but i also don't treat them as being untrue either right so when we see here to the chief musician a psalm for the sons of korra i don't treat that on the same level as the word of god but but here's the thing it makes sense that this psalm would have that right that's talking about this this hope and still being able to serve the lord you know even as a a son of korra because korra was does not have a good name in scripture but obviously they're being referred to as the sons of korra so it's more of an inspiration and i think the last time i brought this up it was a similar song a similar type of a psalm that was giving hope and forgiveness and things like that uh within the text of the psalm um for as a as a psalm for the sons of korra so these are great psalms here this this section and if you notice too that the psalms are um not even though they're subdivided into five books they're also um the you know the psalms are next to each other very frequently have very similar themes to them and that's why we kind of cover some of the same things week after week just in general the thematic they're grouped together but each one individually all has its own depth of truth to it praise lord for the psalms let's bow our heads have a word of prayer dear heavenly father thank you so much for the book of psalms and we thank you for psalm 85 and this this great message of hope and i pray that uh lord when we do sin that we would quickly uh seek your favor again confess and forsake our sins and we could continue to be used of you and lord god forbid any of us would really get out of service to you and and get involved in any type of grievous sin where to the point to where you you really have to to severely chastise us lord i pray that you would you would help us to humble ourselves and and show us the right way again and and you know get our attention to get us back on track and lord that we wouldn't be too proud to go back to church and to to serve you again lord with all of our heart god we love you we thank you so much for all that you've done for us and for being so loving and merciful unto us lord help us to walk in the way of righteousness direct our paths in jesus name we pray amen all right we're going to sing one last song before we are dismissed brother peter will you please lead us all right church if you can open up your hymnals the song number 343 343 revive us again song 343 let's sing this out on the first jesus we praise has shown us our savior and praise hallelujah with thy love amen so i'm back